Obaseki Launches EdoBEST 2.0 To Address Challenges In Secondary Education

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After a successful implementation of Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation, (EdoBEST 1.0), the state government has launched EdoBEST 2.0 to address issues in senior secondary and technical education.

Governor Godwin Obaseki, at the event, said without acquiring the required knowledge to navigate today’s world, achieving desired goals might be difficult.

For youths to be globally competitive and relevant in the 21st century, the governor said, human capacity is imperative.

“Human capacity is what tomorrow’s world needs, and if we don’t give our children what they need, our country won’t be able to compete. The key to any education reform is the teacher. That is why we have trained and retrained our teachers. Teachers are the ones governing schools and once you get the governance of the school right with a competent head teacher, he will get the other teachers to work and our children will be okay.

“We have moved beyond our children just going to school, the focus now is on quality and relevance of what they are being taught. For us, education has not been an elitist product and we must continue so that our children would have access to school and quality education,” he said.

Expressing delight at the successes recorded through EdoBEST1.0, which was launched in 2018, Obaseki said the focus on technical and vocational education is to move the state from a place where people have certificates without jobs to where people have jobs even if without ‘big’ certificates.

“After Junior Secondary School, our children must have a vocation they are good at. In the light of this, we are going to ensure that the state has at least 20 technical colleges before we leave office in 2024. We are also working on 20 mini stadia across the state, as we want to produce total and complete students from our schools,” he said.

Obaseki listed the areas of focus of the programme to include quality and relevance of what is taught students, access, school governance, as well as financing secondary and TVET education.

The governor disclosed that the state would focus on special and adult education as well as tertiary education in 2023. He dismissed fears that the reforms being introduced could be discarded by his successor, saying adequate legal frameworks have been made to back them.

Obaseki added: “We are also going to implement Child Rights Law. Parents must do their part. Every parent must provide food for their children to take to school. Parents must support their child’s academic and co-curricular pursuits.

On his part, the Commissioner for Education, Dr Joan Osa Oviawe, said apart from training over 1,500 teachers and 305 executive principals, the 1,000 Edo Supporting Teachers to Achieve Results (EdoSTAR) Fellows just recruited would be trained too.

“EdoSTAR Teaching Fellowship Programme is not a casual work scheme. It’s a full time Earn-and-Learn employment scheme to recruit and groom the next generation of teachers. Teaching is no longer the profession for quacks. What separates other government teachers from EdoSTAR Fellows is that they are pensionable and earn Teachers Special Allowance. The EdoSTAR Fellows will start earning this once they are absorbed into public service,” he said.

In separate remarks, Education Specialists, UNICEF, Yetunde Oluwatosin and Babagana Aminu, lauded the governor for the initiative and expressed optimism that EdoBEST 2.0 would also make significant impact at the senior secondary School level too.

By Iyabo Lawal

https://guardian.ng/features/education/obaseki-launches-edobest-2-0-to-address-challenges-in-secondary-education/